Ikebana

When you go to Japan, when I was in Japan, people wanted me to teach them how to do a symmetrical arrangement, a flat fan shaped American style flower arrangement, because that is a quintessential American design.

Isn't that interesting? And so like Ikebana is a Japanese one.

Right.

Right.

She'll be here in a couple of weeks at the Arts Centre, doing a residency there, all the way from dear old London town.

not Kate Bush and she is hysterical this girl Sarah Louise Young is seriously talented George how can we ever forget George God bless you George we love you George we missed you we need you indeed and George is going to be doing a remarkable um review today on Ikebana Ikebana you may well wonder what is Ikebana indeed uh the proms I know they've come and gone and rather lastly because we've been overtaken by events on the ground so much has been going on You will get the proms.

You will get them all next week.

Now, this is important.

Thank you.

you and this is a little bit by way of introduction because the next item is a rather unusual item about ikebana what is ikebana not a cabana no no no something completely different And in fact, some funny things happened on the way to and during the night at the Melbourne Recital Centre.

And roving, I reported George Stamkowski, the inimitable, the exquisite, the ebullient one, set off to see Ikebana.

But the evening didn't unfold.

We'll try and demystify it for you and give you lots of options to give us a call, 131 873, if you've got a gardening question.

I just wanted to let you know there are people I know listening to the show that are into Ikebana.

The Sugetsu Ikebana Group, they're celebrating their 100th anniversary.

That's pretty amazing, you know.

That's not bad.

Learned how to read and write Japanese when we lived in Japan.

Had five degrees in Ikebana, which is Japanese flower arranging.

And my father... yeah you know we had a belt in my house if you put your hand back there to block the belt became the belt buckle came with things like this is before kids had attorneys yeah you know yeah came with things like uh quit your crying or i'll give you something to cry about yeah you know and hit me with extension cords and told me i was never going to be nothing and you know i ended up just with a chip on my shoulder pissed off at him letting that man steal days from me my life from me you know but anyway uh i used to run away a lot because i got tired of getting beat up and always the new kid in school because we moved around so much yeah I remember index cards were always yellow back then.

Yeah.

like molds or pests so yeah i think that's definitely the benefit of a plant store Yeah.

And so one of the things you talked about last time with Barb that really just caught my attention was Ikebana.

And I just haven't been able to get it out of my mind.

So as we talk about centerpieces, if you do want to do a unique floral centerpiece, I think this could be a really interesting concept.

You know, I think it's Suicide Awareness Month, for example.

And one thing that flowers, plants teach you is how to take care of yourself, right? How to show up for yourself, how to show up for other people.

And so doing something like an Ikebana arrangement allows you to express yourself, allows you to take care of yourself.

And, you know, when you're tending to something else, you're learning how to become a nurturer.

You're not doing bonsai.

It's a flower arrangement in Western societies versus Ikebana, you know, in Japan, right? And so the way that I've kind of reconciled this is, or at least the framework that I use is people use this terminology of PTSD in always the negative way.

And it's horrible and, you know, totally get it, that you permanently change the neural pathways of the brain so you only respond in certain ways, right? But I think that this sort of shaping and pruning and changing of the way the brain brain works in response to external stimuli and situations as a result of intense experiences that one experiences.

has had, it's not necessarily bad.

And that's Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield, Mass.

Okay, this is a little odd, but at Silvermine Art Center in New Canaan, two classes coming up in Ikebana.

And this is Sojitsu Ikebana, which is a form of Japanese flower arranging.

And so it's a modern take on sculptural, you know, creating sculptures with flowers.

And starting September 19th to October 24th and September 16th to December 2nd, they'll have two different classes running at silverminearts.org. And do you have anything else for us? I do.

And I think that's a really beautiful part of metal.

I also think about, for instance, since I study Ikebana Japanese flower arranging, there's so much emphasis placed on like cutting away, right? And you can think about like metal is, scissors are obviously often made of metal.

as our knives.

If we think about scissors, they're kind of a precise, they can be a precise tool that can cut away, that can create beautiful things.

Yeah, yeah, you go with that.

Yeah, yeah, you go.

One thought I had about metal element is like as an Ikebana practitioner and teacher, one of the main tools that we use is, you know, scissors.

And a few years ago, my teacher, he said, you know, they make this very clear cutting sound, right? And my teacher said, you know, this is the sound of Ikebana because we don't really talk.

Flowers are used symbolically throughout the world, from birth to death.

From weddings to funerals, prom boutonnieres to Valentine's Day bouquets, 60s Vietnam War protests for flower power to World War II Nazi resistor Edelweiss pirates, Hawaiian leis, Swedish flower crowns, Japanese ikebana, it's easy to see why flowers are part of the most important events of our lives.

Flowers, as with humans, move from fresh and vital to withered and dying, a metaphor for our own brief time on Earth.

I don't think I'll be a florist anytime soon, but thanks to that party, my enjoyment of flowers has bloomed, and I'm now noticing flowers everywhere with a, yes, budding appreciation.